Rob is a Realtor with Keller Williams Santa Monica, specializing in representing buyers and selllers of property within the City of Los Angeles and the great state of California. CalDRE# 01501493. Broker CalDRE#01499010

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

#3 Paritai Drive part 2

Further to part 1, here is part 2 of the trials and tribulations of living on Paritai Drive, Orakei in the begininning of the 21st century.

Gary ( an Australian ) was there at the same time as Daniel and I on the first day, so I will call him a founding co-tenant of the house. Daniel and Gary had met on many of occasions in town, at Mama Rosa Pizza, at the Waterfront Bar when we went out for a 12 hour spree to welcome President Clinton to town, of which I nearly got accosted by the Auckland City Police for singing the American National Anthem outside the Stamford Plaza but that is another story. What I am trying to say is that I was of the opinion that Gary and Daniel would get on well, so that was the least of my worries.

I was wanting to make sure that the landlord did not try to lunge out of the bushes or through the front door with some sort of weapon at a most un appropriate time, as well as filling up the spare rooms so as I didn't need to sell off my AMP shares to pay for the shortfall.

Daniel has advertised in the local paper and managed to scape up some characters to call #3 Paritai Drive their abode. The first was a lady who I will call "Teeth". Teeth moved in rather quickly after a rather hasty vetting by Daniel and myself. I thought to myself that there was something a little off about her, but hey.... Those AMP shares were staying uncashed...... All was good with Teeth until her cheese went missing out of the fridge, but I will explain that later.

Then there was a friend of a relative of someone we knew. He had a successful business, was a nice guy, but had a penchanse for illegal weapons and pot. He did have a collectors licence for the guns, so I guess they were legal in his hands, it was just when we had a party and he pulled out some potent pot and started declaring his love for his weapons that I was wondering if we had the right person in the house..... A bit like American Psyco, only he never had an axe under his bed that I knew of.... He paid his rent and was not at the place much, so I told him to pipe down a bit and he stayed for well over a year.

Then there was the married Doctor who had a house way out of town and wanted a place to crash when he was on call.... He was at the place more often that the gun man, and seemed to be level headed.... He had a really beautiful wife whom I really wished visited more often, but anyways...... The rent was paid.

That was 3 rooms, along with Daniel's room and my room. That still left us another 2 rooms. Problem is that when the place has so many people, there is likely to be dis agreements and arguments. There is likely to be some crazyness, and some bitchiness, and there is likely to be a shortfall of rent some way or another...... Where do I start??????

The first day we arrived we decided to light one of the wood burning fires in the kitchen..... It turned out that the chimney had not been properly sweeped, so we really had to get her roaring to burn off all the cob webs. Once the smoke had cleared from the downstairs part of the house no one was keen to leave the fire on while retiring to bed so we had to wait for it to burn out to allow a somewhat comfortable nights sleep. I was glad that I was on the top floor with the best view of the harbour, as it was also the furtherist from the front door if the landlord decided to break on through.

It was all mellow for the first few weeks....... Then things started to get exciting.